Thursday, December 17, 2015

Witch Wishes, Chapter One

I just finished the second draft of Witch Wishes. After a round of edits, I'll send it to beta readers. I really love this story, and think it's maybe my favorite so far. But I really worry some readers won't be able to follow it. It's weird, even for me. Here's the first chapter. If you'd like to be a beta reader, please email me at kristyswords@yahoo.com, although if you haven't read book one and two, you'll be lost, I promise.

Witch Ways, book one in the series is only .99 cents for a limited time. Get yours here.

WITCH WISHES--book three in the Witch Ways series.

I sat on the split rail fence that
separated the Henderson’s property from Uncle Mitch’s, Josh stood directly in
front of me, his torso inches from my knees. Despite the snow covered field,
the icicles dripping from the trees and eaves, and the sharp wind cutting
through my fur-lined cape, I was warm and flushed by Josh’s nearness.

His excitement made him look young, and
just for a brief second, I saw him as a kid, about the age he’d been when I’d
moved to Uncle Mitch’s house after my parents’ divorce. He’d been older than
me, of course, his three years my senior launching him into a stratosphere
where my Barbies and I could never venture, not even in my imagination, and so
now, after 8 years, it seemed impossible he could stand in front of me, his
eyes gleaming with an emotion I didn’t know how to interpret, and say, “I
bought you something.”

“For Christmas?” I asked.

“What?” Confusion clouded his
expression.

And just like that, the happiness I’d felt,
the excitement of our first kiss faded. I touched his hand, and he intertwined
his fingers with mine. He felt warm and solid, and his touch sent tingles up my
arm, even though a dozen alarm bells jangled in my head. A skin-pricking
sensation told me we weren’t alone.

I glanced around at the deserted fields
stretching in all directions. The dark woods loomed in the distance. A pair of
goldfinches flitted through the gray sky, their brightly colored feathers
contrasting sharply with the snowy landscape. Still, despite the quiet
surrounding us, I couldn’t shake the being-watching-feeling.

“Christmas,” I repeated. “It’s a major
holiday.”

Stepping closer, he drew my hand to his
mouth and ran his lips over my knuckles. The prickles spread like fire, warming
me from the top of my head, and down. He acted as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Do you want to see what I got you?” he
asked, flipping his dark hair off his forehead.

I nodded, because when he looked at me
with his big blue eyes, the only answer I could ever offer would be yes.

Cupping my cheek in his hand, he leaned
forward and kissed me. With his lips warm against mine, I found it hard to
think of anything, or anyone but him and the tingles running up, down, and over
my skin.

“Is that it?” I asked. “Because that’s
what I got you, too.”

“Good gift,” he said, placing his
forehead against mine so our eyes were just inches apart. “But no, I got you
something else.”

“They’re not mutually exclusive, right?
If I accept your gift, can I still kiss you?”

“Anytime,” he said.

“Mmm, but probably not in front of your
family.”

He pulled away and lifted his eyebrows.
“Yeah, that’s going to be awkward.”

“I have to tell Bree.”

“I’m sure she already knows,” he said.

“What about your mom?”

“She probably knows, too. She has
serious Mom-dar.”

I nodded, agreeing. Mrs. Henderson
really did seem to have a heaping helping of intuition when it came to her
kids. She could spot lie-loaded conversations before anything was ever actually
uttered, and she probably knew about crush long before her child even attempted
to flirt. This probably came in handy for her, but it caused a lot of havoc and
frustration for her kids…and girls-next-door who happened to have a thing for
her son. I was pretty sure if Mrs. Henderson could read her children, she could
probably also sniff out a girl crushing on Josh.

“Let’s not worry about anyone else
right now.” Josh planted a quick kiss on my lips, leaving me hungry for more.
“I want to show you my present.” Taking my hand, he pulled me off the fence.
“You okay? Are you going to be warm enough?”

I nodded. My head still felt a smidge
fuzzy, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of my recent accident and head
injury, or because kissing Josh made me dizzy.

Something in my expression must have
concerned Josh, because he stopped, and stepped in front of me. “Get on,” he
said.

And in a flash, I was little again,
climbing on for a piggy-back ride, something I must have done a hundred times
in the years before there ever was an Evie-and-Josh, back when I was just his
little sister’s best friend. I wanted to ask him when he started thinking of me
differently, as someone other than the sidekick of one of his life’s biggest
annoyances, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to answer, just like I
knew I couldn’t say when I first decided I’d rather kiss Josh than breathe.
Wrapping my arms around his neckandmy legs around his waist, I decided the exact beginning of
the relationship didn’t matter. It wasn’t a race with a starting line. What
mattered was if we ever got close to the finishing line, we’d find a way to
stay on the course.

Josh tromped across the field, holding
me as easily as if I was Gabby, his baby sister. I guessed we were headed for
the barn, but I also noticed we stayed close to the woods, on the distant side
of the shed, far away from the windows, and the spying eyes of his siblings
inside his house. As the trees stretched their branches toward us and the
goldfinches swooped in the air, the skin-crawling feeling of being watched
returned. I tightened my hold on Josh.

Inside the dimly-lit barn, Josh
loosened his grip, and I slid off. A fiberglass boat stood on its hind end,
propped up against the wall beside a collection of fishing poles, nets, and
waders. Mr. Henderson used the opposite side of the barn for a wood shop.
Countless tools lined his workbench, and a large hanging fluorescent light hung
from the ceiling.

Josh went to the boat, reached behind
it, and pulled out a package about the size of a bread box. “It’s not a big
deal,” he said, flushing. It was wrapped in brightly colored paper covered with
pictures of balloons, which seemed wrong, but glancing at his happy, hopeful
expression, also right.

“I’ll love it whatever it is,” I told
him.

“Open it,” he urged.

“You don’t want me to wait for
Christmas?”

“Why do you keep mentioning that word?”
Annoyance flashed across his face. “I want you to open it now.”

Smiling, I tore it open. Ice skates,
black with red racing stripes, built for speed.

“I bought them at a used sporting goods
store.”

“They’re perfect,” I said, hoping I
wasn’t lying. I’d never tried ice-skating before, at least not on real skates.
I’d slipped my way across frozen Peter’s Pond hundreds of time, but not with
anything sharp or pointy attached to my feet. I ran my finger across the blade.

“They should fit,” Josh continued.” You let
Bree borrow your shoes and I took one with me to the shop. Not that it matters.
Clayton Carlson works there, and he told me I could return them if they don’t
work out.”

I saw myself inching around the
perimeter of the lake, clasping onto Josh with a death grip. I slid him a
glance, wondering if he’d foreseen that, too. “Want to try them out?” I asked.

His face brightened and the
apprehension in his eyes disappeared. “Yeah!” He leaned behind the boat and
pulled out his own, well-worn skates. “I thought you might say that. But…are
you sure you’re up to it?”

“I feel fine, and I’m tired of being
babied.”

My dad, stepmother, uncle, and even
normally cranky Mrs. Mateo, our housekeeper, had been fussing over me ever
since my accident a week ago. Sick of being treated like a princess on a
pillow, I’d escaped with Josh. Occasionally, my ribs would twinge with a
complaint, and my head would throb, I got tired easily, and I’d been really
bored, which meant I slept a lot, which made my head fuzzy…it all seemed like a
vicious circle, and besides all the physical trauma, there was also all the
unanswered questions. My memories didn’t line up with what anyone else could
tell me about the night I fell at the Creature of the Chasm State Park.

Except
for Birdie.

“Evie?”

Josh startled me out of my thoughts. I
smiled up at him and took his hand. “Do you want to walk?”

“Let’s take the bike,” he said. “As
long as you think you’ll be warm enough.”

I shot a glance at Josh’s dirt bike
propped up between the boat and a stack of boxes. “I’m good,” I said, tying the
laces of the skates together and looping them around my neck.

“Yeah, you are,” Josh said, leaning in
to kiss me again.

I pulled the hood of the red cape over
my head and settled on the back of the bike behind Josh while he gunned the
engine. The bike sputtered a few times before it roared to life. Moments later,
we were cruising down the road, bypassing downtown and avoiding the busier
streets. I shot a glance at the town green.

It looked different somehow, bleaker,
although I couldn’t say why. In the distance, a gazebo stood on a small hill
beside St. Mark’s stone chapel, the oldest building in Woodinville. Something
nagged in the back of my mind, like a song wanting to be repeated, but the only
lyrics I could recall were la, la, la.
I tightened my grip on Josh and leaned against him. The skates pinched me, and
I had to ease away.

Black and barren trees stood like
sentinels along The King’s Highway. Silver ice clung to the bushes edging the
road. I had forgotten we’d have to pass Birdie’s house to get to Peter’s Pond.

I bit my lip as we roared past her
driveway. Birdie’s house was as lean and bare as the meat on her bones—long
stretches of hardwood floors, soaring windows, and a circular staircase that
twirled toward heaven. I guessed the house was old, given the stately mansions
in the neighborhood, but I couldn’t have pinpointed an era by the exterior
architecture. I loved it, and I loved the fact that one day it would be mine.
My feelings for Birdie were a lot more difficult to define. I loved her
honesty, her ability to speak her mind without worrying what anyone else would
think of her. Her tiny body radiated with energy. She seemed much more alive
than anyone else I knew. And yet, despite her frankness, I didn’t completely
trust her.

A small wooden sign marked the entrance
to Peter’s Pond Park. If not for a wide swatch of dirt cutting through the
forest, it would be easily missed. The park was composed of two picnic tables,
a trash can, and a few fallen trees strategically placed to serve as benches in
a small clearing

Josh cut the engine, rolled the bike to
a nearby tree, and climbed off. I followed him to a picnic table and sat down.
My gaze wandered back to Birdie’s house, barely visible through the thick
woods.

Go
and talk to her,
a voice inside of me urged.

I told the voice to shut up. Besides,
everything I need to say couldn’t be said infront of Josh. If I started talking about the Creature of the Chasm and
disappearing magic he’d think I’d hit my head too hard. He’d probably tell my
Uncle Mitch, who would tell my dad, who would make me go to a doctor at the
least, and a therapist at the worst. And my dad would tell uber-religious
Maria, my stepmother, and she’d make me talk to her pastor…maybe even an
exorcist…

“Evie?”

I looked up, surprised to see Josh had
already put on his skates while mine still sat on my lap.

Josh loosed the lashes on one skate and
then the other. He handed them to me one at a time, squatting beside me as if
ready to jump in and help if I couldn’t do it on my own. I tightened the laces,
placed my boots on the table next to Josh’s shoes, and took his hand. Together,
we hobbled to the pond’s edge.

The ice looked black, thick and
streaked with countless cuts from previous skaters. The woods ringing the pond
provided a screen from the road. Here Josh could kiss me for hours and no one
would know. But…even though we had the pond to ourselves, I couldn’t shake the
eyes-on-my-back feeling. Hearing a rustling in the trees, I turned and caught
sight of a deer. He stared at me with large black eyes.

Holding onto Josh’s arm, I placed one
skate on the ice and then the other. My ankles wobbled, my feet went in
different directions, and I tightened my hold on Josh.

With Josh behind me holding me upright,
we skirted around the edge of the pond at a snail’s pace. At first, I held my
breath and concentrated on keeping my legs ramrod straight. After our second
loop around the pond, Josh pushed me away from him.

“Hey!” I twirled my arms and fought to
retain my balance.

Behind me, Josh laughed. He skated up
beside me, spun around me, and stopped with a screech of his skates at my side.
“You’re doing great,” he said, taking both my hands. “Ready to move your feet?”
Skating backward, he towed me toward the center of the pond. “Relax,” he said.
“I won’t let you fall.”

Ignoring the deer in the woods, and
anyone else who may have been watching, I kept my eyes locked on his. In my
mind he was ten years old again, and I was seven, and---

He spun me, before catching me in his
arms. Breathless, he gazed down at me and I knew—hoped—he was going to kiss me
again.

“Yeah! Josh! Evie!” a voice called to
us.

Annoyance flashed across Josh’s face
and he dropped my hands. “What are they doing here?” he asked through tight
lips.

I peeked over his shoulder at the small
congregation gathering on the pond’s edge. “Skating. Although, I have to warn
you, it looks like Lincoln is making snowballs.”

Josh muttered something beneath his
breath. “How many of them are there?”

I quickly counted. “Nine. Ten if you
count the dog.”

“Nine? There’s only seven of us. And we
have three dogs, not one.”

“Bree brought Marcus and the twins
brought friends.”

“Marcus? Your stepbrother?”

I nodded.

Josh spun around to watch his six
siblings, one of mine, and Leopold, a giant Great Dane skittering our way. “Any
chance they’ll break the ice?” he asked.

“You don’t really want that.”

“I guess you’re right,” he said.

“Why didn’t you bring us with you?”
Lincoln demanded, sliding our way in his red Converse sneakers. He was only
seven, but he looked a lot younger in his hand-me down jacket. He did a great
impression of Barbara Walters or Harvey Levin, asking all the questions no one
wants to answer.

Josh put his arms around me, shielding
me from the oncoming Lincoln. “Maybe we wanted to be alone.”

“Why?” He batted his white blond eyelashes
at his.

“Hey!” Bree called out. She waved with the hand that wasn’t holding
onto Marcus, my gorgeous, Argentine half-brother. She wore a parka almost as bright as her red
curly hair. “Your dad sent me to look for you. Maria was cursing you in
Spanish.”

Marcus shot Bree a reproachful look,
but he didn’t drop her hand. “They are just worried,” he said. “Your accident
really shook them up.”

“I’m fine.”

Marcus slid closer, pulling Bree with
him. “They’re not so sure. I think they both feel guilty you are living with
your Uncle Mitch and not with us.”

I started to roll my eyes but caught
sight of Leopold plowing through the woods and taking Gabby with him.

“Help!” Gabby shrieked, clutching the
leash and trying to keep up with the dog. “Leopold! Stop!”

“Drop the leash, Gabs!” Bree called.

Josh gave Bree a nasty look, before
skating after his baby sister.

“So, what should I tell your dad?” Bree
asked me, grinning. When I didn’t answer, she continued, “Were you seriously
kissing my brother?”

I flashed a look at her hand clasped in
Marcus’s. “You’re holding hands with mine.”

“This is just for stability,” Bree
said. “He’d totally fall if not for me.”

Marcus turned a handsome red and looked
away.

“Why is Leopold here?” I asked.

“Mrs. Cleary is paying the twins to
walk him,” Bree said.

“But the twins aren’t walking him.” I
glanced over at the twelve year old twins trying to knock each other off their
feet. “They’re going to break something.”

“Won’t be the first time,” Bree said.

“As long as it’s not the ice, it’s okay
with me,” Marcus said.

I watched Josh confront his sister,
take possession of the leash, and rein in Leopold.

“I’m going to see if Josh needs help,”
I told Bree and Marcus, without thinking about my skates. Seconds later, I was
on my back, looking up at the gray sky.

Bree, Marcus, Lincoln, the twins, and two
kids I didn’t know came to stare at me.

“You okay?” Bree asked.

“You belong in Washington,” Marcus
said.

Bree slugged his arm. “She totally
could have fallen just as easily in Washington as here!”

“Are you moving to Washington, Evie?”
Lincoln asked. “Like with the president?”

Josh pushed his way through. “Back
off,” he growled. Reaching down, he pulled me up and steadied me on my feet.
“You alright?”

I nodded and touched my forehead.

Josh steered me to the pond’s bank,
helped me up onto the solid, non-slippery ground, and held my hand as we
wobbled to the picnic bench where we’d left our shoes.

“Want to return Leopold to Mrs. Cleary?”
Josh asked. “We’ll have to walk.”

“Did they really drive here with nine
people and that huge dog in the van?” I stifled a giggle at the thought as I
pulled off my skates and slipped on my boots.

Josh rolled his eyes. “My mom must have
left Bree in charge.”

“I know why Bree came,” I said. “She
probably thought it would be more fun to pile everyone into the van than to
stay at home and play referee, but how did she get Marcus to come?” I tied the
skates together and strung them around my neck.

“I bet he went over to our house
looking for you.” Josh finished tying his shoes, stood, and went to get
Leopold.

I fondled Leopold’s ears, and he looked
up at me with a loving gaze, as if he knew and understood I had recently saved
his life. I closed my eyes against the rush of memories. The Creature of the
Chasm, the lies, the monster crashing the Winter Formal dance…

“Evie? You ready?” Josh asked.

I shook my head, as if I could clear it
from the unhappy memories…but were they memories? Delusions? A dream? A psychotic
break?

“It’s kind of far, isn’t it?” I asked,
taking Josh’s hand.

“I know a short cut.” His steps slowed.
“Unless…”

“What?”

“Well, maybe you don’t want to go that
way.”

“Why not?”

“We have to go through the Chasm State
Park.”

“Oh.” A tremor shook through me.
“That’s okay.” It was, right? I should be able to walk through the Creature of
the Chasm State Park...in the daylight…with Josh, not to mention Leopold.
Nothing, no one, could hurt me…again. I held Josh’s hand a smidge tighter.

Under the canopy of trees, a light
dusting of snow lay on the ground. As we moved deeper into the woods, the sound
of the cars on the highway, or the buzz of civilization faded into stillness,
amplifying the crunch of our shoes on fallen leaves and twigs. The last time
I’d been here it’d been close to midnight. I remembered the dark night, the
stillness, but little else.

As we walked, Josh talked about his
hopes for a scholarship and the colleges he wanted to attend. I listened with a
sick heart, knowing I should be excited for him, but the thought of being left
behind, again, hurt.

“I’d love to go to California,” he
said.

“Mmm,” I replied.

“I mean, I haven’t ever been further
west than Chicago. You’ve been to India!”

“I’m not sure if they have football in
India. I don’t think there’s room.”

He grinned and elbowed me.

I tried to smile. “I’m serious. How
many players are allowed on a football field at a time?”

“Eleven for each team, or twenty-two.”

“And how big is a football field?”

“About a hundred and ten yards.”

“And there’s about a zillion people in
India. You do the math.”

Josh laughed.

“I’m serious. You do not want to go to
India.”

He cut me a sideways glance. “Do you
want to go to Washington with your dad?” he asked.

“That’s not going to happen.”

Josh dropped my hand and draped his arm
around my shoulder, pulling me close. I inhaled his warm scent. Then I froze.

“What’s the matter?” Josh asked.

We’d come to the other side of the
park, the main entrance. A large wooden sign stood by the guard gate, reading, Welcome to the Chasm State Park.ark.